{"id":118,"date":"2010-03-13T17:20:48","date_gmt":"2010-03-13T08:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shortword\/2010\/03\/13\/the-surprising-election-and-confirmation-of-king-david-summary-and-keywords\/"},"modified":"2010-04-16T19:19:57","modified_gmt":"2010-04-16T10:19:57","slug":"the-surprising-election-and-confirmation-of-king-david-summary-and-keywords","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/2010\/03\/13\/the-surprising-election-and-confirmation-of-king-david-summary-and-keywords\/","title":{"rendered":"The Surprising Election and Confirmation of King David – Summary and Keywords"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my first post<\/a> about my new book, I posted statements by a couple of well-known and a couple of anonymous biblical scholars. For my second post, I\u2019d like to post here the summary that Harvard University Press used in their catalog (both online<\/a> and in their Spring\/Summer 2010 print catalog<\/a>). It\u2019s also the summary that vendors like Eisenbrauns<\/a> and Amazon<\/a> picked up (with lightning speed, I might add) when HUP started promoting my book online.<\/p>\n

THE SURPRISING ELECTION AND CONFIRMATION OF KING DAVID<\/strong>
\nJ. RANDALL SHORT<\/strong>
\nSome of the best-known biblical episodes are found in the story of David\u2019s rise to kingship in First and Second Samuel. Why was this series of stories included in the Bible?<\/p>\n

An answer that has become increasingly popular is that this narrative should be interpreted as the \u201capology of David,\u201d that is, the personal justification of King David against charges that he illegitimately usurped Saul\u2019s throne. Comparisons between \u201cthe History of David\u2019s Rise\u201d and the Hittite \u201cApology of Hattu\u0161ili,\u201d in particular, appear to support this view that the biblical account belongs to the genre of ancient Near Eastern royal apology.<\/p>\n

Having presented this approach, Randall Short argues that the biblical account has less in common with the Hittite apology than scholars have asserted, and he demonstrates how interpretive assumptions about the historical reality behind the text inform the meaning that these scholars discern in the text. His central contention is that this story should not be interpreted as the personal exoneration of David composed to win over suspicious readers. Rather, composed for faithful readers represented by David, the story depicts the dramatic confirmation of David\u2019s surprising election through his gradual emergence as the beloved son of Jesse, Saul, all Israel, and YHWH Himself.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"HUPCatalog2010.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The main purpose of a summary in a print catalog, of course, is to give readers a good idea of what the book is about. But online summaries have a purpose that is equally important. They draw people who are running searches on the key words and phrases to the website and let them know about the book in the first place.<\/p>\n

I would love to see what search strings bring people to my book\u2019s site at Harvard University Press, Amazon, and the like. One problem with summaries, though, is that they don\u2019t include — and can\u2019t include without becoming nearly unreadable — many of the key terms and phrases that a lot of people among my intended readers are likely to be Googling and Binging.<\/p>\n

So, in the interests of reaching as wide an audience as possible, and hoping that you won\u2019t be disappointed if your online search of any of the below terms brought you here, I offer a mini-index of keywords and phrases that somehow relate to my book. This, too, is rather limited, but I hope it\u2019s skim-worthy and, more importantly, search-worthy.<\/p>\n

\"SECKD-BookCovers.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Interested in Any of the Following? Then please check out The Surprising Election and Confirmation of King David<\/em>:
\n<\/strong>
\nBiblical figures and themes: <\/strong>King David, King Saul, the Prophet Samuel, Davidic Covenant, David\u2019s Anointing, Divine Election, Divine Rejection, Davidic King and Kingdom, Kingship in Israel and Judah<\/p>\n

Texts and corpuses: <\/strong>Books of Samuel, Historical Books of the Bible, the Former Prophets, Nevi\u2019im, Nebi\u2019im, Historical Psalms, Tanakh, Masoretic Text (MT), Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), Hebrew Bible, Old Testament; Samuel Commentary<\/p>\n

Critical sources, extra-biblical texts, etc.: <\/strong>History of David\u2019s Rise (HDR), Apology of David, Ancient Israelite Royal Propaganda, Apology of Hattusili, Apology of Hattushilish, Hittite Empire, Ancient Near Eastern Apologies, ANE, Deuteronomist, Deuteronomistic, Dtr, Original Context, Final Form<\/p>\n

Modern Scholarly Approaches: <\/strong>Historical Critical Scholarship, Historical Criticism, Source Criticism, Redactional Criticism, Rhetorical Criticism, Ideological Criticism, Tradition Criticism, Canonical Criticism, Literary Criticism, Comparative Criticism, Theological Interpretation, Biblical Interpretation, Biblical Exegesis<\/p>\n

Scholars and works: <\/strong>P. Kyle McCarter, \u201cThe Apology of David\u201d (JBL), and I Samuel<\/em> (Anchor Bible); Baruch Halpern, David\u2019s Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King<\/em>; Steven L. McKenzie, King David: A Biography<\/em>; James W. Flanagan, David\u2019s Social Drama: A Hologram of Israel\u2019s Early Iron Age<\/em>; Harry A. Hoffner, \u201cPropaganda and Political Justification in Hittite Historiography.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my first post about my new book, I posted statements by a couple of well-known and a couple of anonymous biblical scholars. For my second post, I\u2019d like to post here the summary that Harvard University Press used in their catalog (both online and in their Spring\/Summer 2010 print catalog). It\u2019s also the summary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13928,14829],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biblical-studies","category-seckd-my-book"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5k4cx-1U","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions\/119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}